retiredmartin

I’m not saying I want to close down all breweries, but it would make it much easier to see the pubs on the GBG maps if we did.

On this extract from the Northern Ireland map, you might make complex travel plans before you realise that ALL the entries bar Coleraine are within a Causeway Giant’s step from Belfast, and everything else is homebrew.

Brewery closures are catching up with new openings, but even outside the hotbeds of West Yorkshire and Devon you’ll often find more brewery symbols than pubs in the Guide.

So with Horsham. Five GBG pubs, five breweries, possibly more.

The only one whose beers I’d seen on my travels is Weltons, who pop up from time to time in Spoons.

But on the Saturday morning, what is that I see in the Lynd Cross ?

Sadly, even though I was driving, I couldn’t persuade Mrs RM to have a pint of the local Kissingate (or the £1.19 a pint IPA).

Plenty of locals drinking sensibly at 9am though.

Newcy Brown has less calories if you drink it through a straw, apparently.

Mrs RM was transfixed by the conversations in what she called the “OAP dating corner“.

The main conversational items discussed over brandy and Fosters seemed to be “the problem with young people” and “the lager’s gone up 25p”.

A rather different atmosphere at the Tasting Rooms for the aforementioned Kissingate, located in a frankly beautiful slice of Sussex countryside.

If I had to name my least favoured type of GBG entry, it would be “Small Brewery Tasting Rooms on an Industrial Estate“, where my favourite is “Chaotic Edge of Town Local Appealing to All With One Beer On“.

BUT. The lady was really friendly, they’ve made an effort to make a decent seating area, and their beer was excellent. Good luck to them.

Oh, and the loos would put any micropub to shame.

Some of you will expect to see some brewery-type things. Here they are.

We preferred the lovely paintings of owls and bunny rabbits.